...the shut down of electric cars went pretty much unnoticed by news outlets 12 years ago.

There are a lot of electric cars in Japan these days. But I'm not sure how much it helps. They run on electricity but that electricity still has to be generated somewhere. So it comes from power plants that use nuclear energy or burn fossil fuels.

Indeed. Not that cleaner running cars are a bad thing, but the real change needs to come at the core you mentioned...a change off fossil fuels. Shame that a great candidate for the future of energy (there are of course multiple solutions needed) is nuclear energy which is seemingly trying to be killed as badly as the electric car!

Ah Darkshade we all know the answer, it's laziness. If we all made the daily, significant changes to reduce our "carbon footprint" and be more green and all that would truly make the grandest difference of all. But that's hard. And not even bashing (I certainly am guilty) it's just hard to do, especially in global numbers.

ah screw it I will enjoy life and live in the present moment I will listen to some prog drink some wine smoke some weed and when climate change destroys our planet I will have no regrets because I will die doing what I love.

What don't people get? The Earth we all know and love is not going to be the hospitable place it (barely) is now in 30 years. 30 years. That's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.

I think people 'get it'. But realistically, what can people do about it? People are so busy taking care of their short-term problems like working to pay the rent/mortgage and earning enough money to survive day to day. Most people don't have time to find solutions to problems that are 30 years away. Modern life causes a lot of stress and distracts people from things that might be important.

I meant the people that CAN do something about it. Like politicians, famous/rich people because they have the time and money, etc... Anyone who CAN do something about it, or at least bring awareness to the issue.

"Going Green" spread like wildfire over the last few years, there's no reason why something like that can't be done. I must have talked to dozens of people over the past month or so, and more or less, they were not aware that our atmosphere is reaching the point of no return until I told them. The media has not brought the issue out to the public's awareness.

I understand it's hard, I don't even know what I can do about it, but the least everyone can do is spread the word, and maybe try not to drive everywhere you go, if it's close enough.

What don't people get? The Earth we all know and love is not going to be the hospitable place it (barely) is now in 30 years. 30 years. That's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.

I think people 'get it'. But realistically, what can people do about it? People are so busy taking care of their short-term problems like working to pay the rent/mortgage and earning enough money to survive day to day. Most people don't have time to find solutions to problems that are 30 years away. Modern life causes a lot of stress and distracts people from things that might be important.

...the shut down of electric cars went pretty much unnoticed by news outlets 12 years ago.

There are a lot of electric cars in Japan these days. But I'm not sure how much it helps. They run on electricity but that electricity still has to be generated somewhere. So it comes from power plants that use nuclear energy or burn fossil fuels.

So I thought this would have become big news at some point after the 400 ppm hit, but so far, not one media outlet has mentioned this, even as an afterthought. I'm not surprised though, especially since the shut down of electric cars went pretty much unnoticed by news outlets 12 years ago.

This is not a topic that should die off like most other topics (I don't just mean here at PA).

Is the media threatened by the oil companies, or is it a case of "well, that's something the next generations will have to deal with". Well, then don't have kids, because either they, or their kids, are going to have to try and survive in an environment not fit for human beings to live in.

What don't people get? The Earth we all know and love is not going to be the hospitable place it (barely) is now in 30 years. 30 years. That's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.

Birthrates fall as countries become 'developed' so population growth should eventually slow down if all countries become 'developed'. Although of course people in developed countries live longer which creates different kinds of social and economic problems.

I'm not sure if it's possible for all the planet's nations to be 'developed' at the same time if we continue the same kind of exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor practices because we want cheap consumer goods.

Previously developed countries might collapse economically (some say this is happening in Greece now). But I wonder what the mental effect on people is... if you were born and raised in a developing country then you would be less aware of what living in a developed country is like. But if you are living in a country that was previously 'rich' but has now become 'poor' then how does that influence you mentally?

Here in Japan many people seem very apathetic because they feel that Japan's 'golden days' are in the past and never coming back. People seem very apathetic about the future. They still enjoy their lives but seem to have lost their ambition and drive (I'm not saying this is a 'good' or 'bad' thing because I'm not sure). And Japan is 'officially' the world's third largest economy and a 'rich' country but almost everybody I know is worried about money, the pension system, the future... and there are a lot of homeless people and unemployed people and mentally ill people living in this supposedly 'rich' country.

There's been natural extinction events and extreme climate change before humans were around. But we are definitely contributing to the problems.

Nuclear Power is a good solution to our energy problems in theory, but in reality some of the facilities are not properly managed or maintained which can lead to accidents. Like all companies they sometimes cut costs in areas they shouldn't.

Sorry if you've been asked before. Out of interest, do you believe that anthropogenic global warming is real?

Honest answer is "I don't know" - I believe we are contributary, but are not necessarily the cause. I think the cause is natural but we are making it much worse. The Earth's climate and ecosystem is never static and never actually achieves a steady-state equilibrium where CO2 output from animals is completely balanced by O2 output from plants.

†

The "Gaia" reference in my post is a nod towards the Gaia Hypothesis even though I don't actually believe it is real - the shifting balance between animals and plants is not a goal seeking evolution, it's just what happens naturally and it isn't as finely-tuned as the Gaia Hypothesis proponets would suggest (in technical terms it is under-damped) - the planet cannot support a major imbalance so as one begins to dominate the penduluum swings back the other way.We have "survived" two or three of these periods of high concentrations of CO2 since we first fell out of the tree on the African savanha - they normally kill off megafauna who need high O2 levels in the atmosphere to survive (Though we have been blamed for that too - which is surprising given the human population size at that time). On geological time-scales these fluctuations can be very extreme with wide ranges of temperature and atmosphere composition.

†

I suspect (and the long-term data from ice-cores suggests this) that we have arrived at an unfortunate co-incidence of†one of these†natural swings away from O2 breathers at the same time as we as a species have started producing more CO2 than we would naturally do as an animal of our current population size.

Sorry if you've been asked before. Out of interest, do you believe that anthropogenic global warming is real?

Honest answer is "I don't know" - I believe we are contributary, but are not necessarily the cause. I think the cause is natural but we are making it much worse. The Earth's climate and ecosystem is never static and never actually achieves a steady-state equilibrium where CO2 output from animals is completely balanced by O2 output from plants.

The "Gaia" reference in my post is a nod towards the Gaia Hypothesis even though I don't actually believe it is real - the shifting balance between animals and plants is not a goal seeking evolution, it's just what happens naturally and it isn't as finely-tuned as the Gaia Hypothesis proponets would suggest (in technical terms it is under-damped) - the planet cannot support a major imbalance so as one begins to dominate the penduluum swings back the other way.We have "survived" two or three of these periods of high concentrations of CO2 since we first fell out of the tree on the African savanha - they normally kill off megafauna who need high O2 levels in the atmosphere to survive (Though we have been blamed for that too - which is surprising given the human population size at that time). On geological time-scales these fluctuations can be very extreme with wide ranges of temperature and atmosphere composition.

I suspect (and the long-term data from ice-cores suggests this) that we have arrived at an unfortunate co-incidence of one of these natural swings away from O2 breathers at the same time as we as a species have started producing more CO2 than we would naturally do as an animal of our current population size.

"You know what uranium is, right?Itís this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things.But nobody talks about that."

There are too many people eating too much of the food that too many other people are having to survive without. There's plenty of food for all, but it's in the wrong places.

That's not a problem with population size. That's a problem with food distribution, or more specifically food politics and economics. There is more than enough food to go round, and as scientific approaches to intensive farming continue to progress there will be all the more.

The challenge, in my opinion is not the size of global population, which in some regions is actually in significant decline, but ensuring the blocks to people in poor countries getting the food they need are removed, be they political, enviornmental etc etc.. North Korea is a good example where their leadership is happy to let it's population starve rather than accept aid from the US, in return for compromises with it's military programmes. Kissenger advocated using 'food as a weapon' and one can spin the NK scenario in whiuchever way you choose to show either the US or NK in a bad light, but it is an example of people being held to ransom by the supply of a plentiful food supply.

All the food that gets wasted in America in one day could probably stop world hunger for 6-8 months. Work in a restaurant for a week and watch how much food gets thrown out, either by people not finishing their meals, or by food not being sold, and those are just the 2 big reasons.

...in all honesty, we are. The only question left is how f**ked we are.

Pretty much. The ecosystem will sort itself out, it always has done, the Earth has been hotter, it has been colder, it has had higher CO2 levels and it has had higher O2 levels, the climate has been more hostile and it has been more temperate,†life has had bigger and more widespread extinctions and†its had huge species explosions - the Eath and its ecosystem is never static and constantly changes. Gaia will achieve a new equilibrium and life will go on, albeit without a dominant intelligent species that triggered the latest change.

Sorry if you've been asked before. Out of interest, do you believe that anthropogenic global warming is real?

There are apparently too many people. Prof John P Holdren suggested that sterilants could be put into the food and water supply to reduce fertility, and programs of forced sterilisation, abortion and vasectomy could be implemented in the third world, along the lines of past Chinese models to bring global population numbers down. He wrote about it in his 1975 book 'Ecoscience' He also suggested that birthing licenses could be issued to women based on their age, general health and genetic pre-dispoistion to serious illness, and these licences could be marketed through the private sector. He was just 'brainstorming' but he is now Obama's science Tzar, so who knows his type may get their way and save us all from ourselves. Praise be to the party!

Far too many people. Isaac Asimov once said that this planet can support about two billion people all living a modern 'western' lifestyle. We passed two billion about ninety years ago, and we passed four billion in about 1974, and we'll pass eight billion in about another fourteen years or so. (It seems like the population is doubling about every fifty years, but this is a temporary thing)

...in all honesty, we are. The only question left is how f**ked we are.

Pretty much. The ecosystem will sort itself out, it always has done, the Earth has been hotter, it has been colder, it has had higher CO2 levels and it has had higher O2 levels, the climate has been more hostile and it has been more temperate, life has had bigger and more widespread extinctions and its had huge species explosions - the Eath and its ecosystem is never static and constantly changes. Gaia will achieve a new equilibrium and life will go on, albeit without a dominant intelligent species that triggered the latest change.

"You know what uranium is, right?Itís this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things.But nobody talks about that."

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